In The Blood is a Next GenNarutoFan Fic written by justplainrii. It takes place twenty-seven years after the end of the manga, and is a slowly unfurling mystery that starts when Sasuke finds a young boy who is the spitting image of his deceased older brother, Itachi. Eventually, he brings the kid back to Konoha to train him, despite having a genin team of his own to look after. And that child turns out to be a clone of Itachi.

Pretty soon, more clones start to show up, and all the evidence points to Orochimaru being responsible. Despite the scale of the plot and large number of OCs, the story manages to stay firmly grounded in Konoha.

Complete as of May 2014. At 162 chapters (plus Appendices), it's really long. The author occasionally updates with one-shots set in the universe of the fic, as well.

Tropes found in In The Blood

Abusive Parents: Sasuke, full stop. He calls his children "failures" and "disappointments", is always dictating their lives, and pushes them way too hard emotionally and physically. He also disowns one of his children when she's eight years old and throws her out of the house. He later disowns his firstborn son, and nearly kills his youngest son in a duel.

He's also verbally abusive towards Ino, and while he never outright hits her, he does not shy away from physical aggression and intimidation towards her.

Rather than using artificial means, Orochimaru uses human surrogates in his experiments with clones and modified fetuses. When Karin admits to being the creator of the clones, this is still true: she used her own body to grow them.

Broken Bird: Nadeshiko. Bonus points for the fact that her childhood nickname actually was "little bird".

Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Inou, when interrogating Orochimaru, has his own technique backfire on him when he dives too deeply into the consciousness. He’s a shivering wreck as he comes away from it. Ooda, the other side of the interrogation, is even worse off.

Character Development: Besides Sasuke (see Characterization Marches On), Takeru gets some too after meeting Shikake. He becomes more responsible and less of a Jerk Ass. He even lampshades this in chapter 142 by stating he's an adult now and well beyond childish thinking unlike his "friend" Gyosei.

Characterization Marches On: Sasuke starts off as an unrepentant control freak, with an emotional chokehold on his family. One epiphany and a few years later, he’s far more gentle and permissive, letting his family run their own affairs.

Cloning Blues: Though most of the clones aren’t aware that they’re even clones to begin with, the ones that do know have severe identity issues. Except for Kiine, possibly because of the way it was explained to her.

Colourful Theme Naming: Shusuke, Masao, and Murasaki, former students of Naruto's, have names that contain the kanji for "Crimson," "Blue," and "Purple," respectively, which suits their nature as a team. Kurenai's daughter Benio shares a similarly red-themed name.

Cryptic Background Reference: Sakura mentions that Lee proposed to her in an outrageous way in chapter 6. Over 100 chapters later, the proposal is actually seen in a flashback. He wrote it, with Naruto's help, on the faces of the Hokage Cliffs.

Dead Guy Junior: Lampshaded when Karin and Suigetsu talk about what he'd name his son. He refuses to name him Mangetsu. He informs her later that he'd have named the promised clone of his brother this, however.

Despair Event Horizon: After her husband's death, Hanabi attempts to drown herself and her newborn son, believing that they'll be reunited in the afterlife.

Hates Being Touched: Sasuke, strangely. Orochimaru's treatments to enhance his body while in Sound left him physically and sexually traumatized.

Heel Realization: Orochimaru unintentionally helps Sasuke finally realize how abusive he is. After he's saved from an almost successful suicide attempt by his brother, he makes a genuine - and eventually successful - effort to actually be a good father and husband.

My Greatest Failure: For Nadeshiko, it's the accidental death of Shusuke in the Chuunin exams. She's visited his grave, every Saturday, for ten years, and it's implied that she continues the habit into adulthood.

Never My Fault: Sasuke manages to somehow blame his family for things that are even, clearly, because of him. This is especially apparent in chapter 104. Orochimaru causes him to completely reverse his thought process and realize that most of his misfortune is his own fault.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Orochimaru - of all people - is the one who finally brings Sasuke to his senses about how he's been treating his family and Yakata. And it actually changes Sasuke for the better!

Papa Wolf: Much like his counterpart, Karin, Suigetsu does not appreciate it when you mess with his kids.

Pregnant Badass: Karin, who spends most of the story pregnant. Both in flashbacks and the present-day. She gives birth to ten children in total over the years, all while single-handedly running a clinic and doing her own research.

Takeru's best friend Gyosei is based on Akio Ohtori, according to the appendices, with Sakura's daughter Sakari filling in the role of Utena and her girlfriend for Anthy. Other Utena references exist in the form of alternate kanji readings.

Two movies are released near the end of the story, titled The Scissor Man and Suzume Kuro. Ooda stars in both of them, making him this universe's Johnny Depp.

Verbal Tic: Yakata has a stutter and a habit of repeating words and phrases.

The Uzumaki clan appears to have a genetic verbal tic. Naruto frequently adds "y'know" to his sentences; Kiine does the same with "yeah" like her predecessor, Kushina, an early sign that she's really Kushina's clone. Karin even appears to have one, saying "okay" quite frequently. When delivering Kotoji to Yamato in disguise, this tic becomes apparent when she grows upset.

"Well Done, Son!" Guy: Inou wants very badly to earn his father's respect, and he works for it to the point of physically harming himself. He nearly dies in a duel with Sasuke after the Chuunin exams for this very reason.

Even though he's a grown man, Sasuke frequently wonders if his father would approve of him and his family. When they meet in the afterlife, Fugaku makes it very clear how proud he is of Sasuke, even if Sasuke doesn't believe him.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy